Amazon Kindle dual-screen e-reader patent granted, Nook potentially in Trouble

[BenLee]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Nothing.

But a company keeping a stealth patent for a very trivial "design" hidden until a competitor independently designs and markets such a product, then springing it as a weapon to stifle competition, is very, very wrong.

The purpose -- the original purpose -- of patents is to keep trade secrets from being lost, and knowledge from being hidden, by offering a limited monopoly in exchange for publishing the details of an invention, so that it is public record forever and so that other inventors can study it and learn from it. They were never intended to be weapons to use against another company instead of competing fairly with it in the marketplace. The one-click patent, to pick on a previous Amazon demonstration of their preference for litigation over competition, is a perfect example of what patents are not meant for.

Totally agree. I would be very disappointed in Amazon for pulling such a low blow. People have definitely forgotten the original purpose of patents, and that is a shame. If companies keep attacking each other with patents, it's probably better that they be eliminated altogether.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

But a company keeping a stealth patent for a very trivial "design" hidden until a competitor independently designs and markets such a product, then springing it as a weapon to stifle competition, is very, very wrong.

I guess. Fortunately, the patent was for a highly specific design, namely of the K1.

Also, there is zero indication of Amazon using this as a "weapon to stifle competition." They haven't filed a lawsuit, and the patent is so specific that they couldn't halt anyone unless they did a direct knock-off of the K1.

The mistaken speculation that "Amazon can use this to sue B&N" is just sloppy blogging, not a real situation or even likely to happen.

[fjtorres]

And the only stealth aspect was that they only filed in one jurisdiction to keep it quiet that they were *thinking* of getting into ebook readers back in 2006. Which is around the time Amazon bought Mobipocket.
Hardly nefarious for a company to want to keep its strategic plans for a market that barely existed secret. Like, who were they trying to blindside? Sony's Libre? The PRS500 didn't even exist when the patent was submitted.
This is just business as usual. Nothing evil here.

[Shaggy]

This sounds to me like a "design patent", not a patent of any actual technology, etc. Those are fairly useless anyway.